Google and Apple restored ByteDance’s social media platform TikTok to their app stores in the US around a month after enacting a government ban on access, having apparently been offered assurances they will not face prosecution.

TikTok issued a brief statement today (14 February) explaining users in the US were again able to download the service through Google Play and the App Store.

The people of the US can “continue to create, discover and share what they love on TikTok”, it proclaimed.

Bloomberg reported Google and Apple received personal assurances from US President Donald Trump they would not face any legal backlash for offering the service.

TikTok complied with a requirement to halt access to its service in the US by 19 January, resulting in an outage, but President Trump made restoring it a priority after taking office on 20 January.

Despite the service being restored, Google and Apple hesitated to put TikTok back on the shelves of their app marketplaces because the legislation to ban the service had been paused rather than reversed.

President Trump is keen to see the US elements of TikTok sold to a domestic company and even mooted the government taking a stake.